When Chadwick Boseman was cast as Jackie Robinson in the race-themed baseball drama "42," he was immediately confronted by someone with personal knowledge of the renowned ballplayer: the athlete's widow, Rachel Robinson.

"The first thing she said was basically, 'Who are you, and why do you get to play my husband?'" Boseman said, laughing, as he recalled the woman who had been trying for more than a decade to shepherd through a film about her late husband.

"We were sitting in her office down on (New York's) Varick Street, and she was talking to me and showing me photo albums, and she told me she was a little nervous about me playing him."

And although Robinson's apprehensions were eased a few months later after visiting the set, the pressure Boseman felt hints at the expectations that come with making a modern Jackie Robinson feature, which after years of false starts will be released by Warner Bros. on Friday.

Written and directed by veteran screenwriter Brian Helgeland (who won an Oscar for co-writing the "L.A. Confidential" script), the film traces the career of the Brooklyn Dodger as he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947 — and the politics and relationships among Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), manager Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni) and others.

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